רְעִי

The word "רְעִי" (re'i) is an Aramaic word adopted in Hebrew to describe excrement. It was used by the rabbis of the Talmud, for whom Aramaic was the common spoken language. These sages even claimed to have found the word in the Bible, for example in the difficult verse in the Book of Nahum: "And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock" (3:6). This interpretation is particularly interesting because in the verse the word is written with an aleph ("רֹאִי," ro'i) and not with an ayin ("רְעִי," re'i), but the rabbis interpreted it as the same word. According to their interpretation, the verse threatens to cast abominations, to make vile, and to set as excrement. The word continued to be used by rabbis in the Middle Ages in halakhic discussions related to excrement. During the Haskalah period, when Hebrew writers sought a variety of words to describe excrement in secular contexts, they also incorporated the word "re'i" into their vocabulary. The writer Mendele Mocher Sforim used the word in his book "The Natural History" (1862), alongside other words such as "glalim," "tzo'ah," "peresh," and "tzfi'ei bakar." Today, the word "re'i" is considered a relatively rare word in modern Hebrew and is used mainly in literary or historical contexts.